


Chilton Academy for Spies

by manycoloureddays



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 16:50:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10365138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manycoloureddays/pseuds/manycoloureddays
Summary: There are gargoyles staring down at her. It’s, well, quite frankly it’s creepy.“I thought it would be less ‘off with their heads,’” Rory said, squinting up at the gargoyles.Chilton is a super secret spy school, nothing else changes... or everything does.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silver_wings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_wings/gifts).



> Happiest of happy days to one of my bestest friends, Erin. And thank you once again M, for your wonderful edits!

The first time Rory Gilmore surprises Paris she hasn’t even met her. They have snuck into the admin building. Paris, because she wants to know if Chilton has accepted anyone who might possibly be considered competition; Louise, because any chance to be ahead of the news was a point scored; and Madeline, because she has a knack for locks and is always handy in an escape attempt. Coming up with plausible excuses for teachers is the only time her brain worked quicker than Paris’.

An unfortunate side effect of her presence is the constant Mission Impossible humming. 

“Madeline will you _be quiet,_ ” she hisses. “Louise, do you have her file?”

Louise just holds a finger up, eyes racing across the screen, other fingers flying across the keyboard. The finger is code for ‘will you just _wait_ ’. Paris gets that finger a lot.

“Okay, I’ve got it,” Louise smirks. It’s a dangerous look. It’ll be a look feared by lesser people one day, Paris is sure. “Oh Paris, you’ll love this.” 

“What? What?”

She snatches the laptop off the table. And of course, of course this would happen. Paris has been having a relatively easy time of it lately; top of all her classes except the R&D tech elective she picked up to make her CV look better come graduation, shoe in for the internship at the Agency where she’ll be shadowing one of Emily Gilmore’s protégés and can ask all the questions she’s been wanting to ask, and the intel she acquired during one of their Recon/Surveillance practicals last week is being used for a real op. So of course the new girl’s name is Lorelai Leigh Gilmore. Of course the granddaughter of the first female Head Agent is coming to Chilton.

Paris hates legacy kids.

“ _Gilmore,”_ Madeline breathes reverently, reading over her shoulder. “Do you think she’ll introduce me to her mom? Do you think I can ask Lorelai Gilmore to sign something? Do you think she’ll sign something in that lipstick she used to poison that guy in Rome?”

“I think Paris has something different in mind,” Louise says, and Paris looks up from the screen and catches Louise watching her, hungry. Paris grins back.

“Yeah, that’s definitely her about to wreck destruction look.”

 

***

 

There are gargoyles staring down at her. It’s, well, quite frankly it’s creepy.

“I thought it would be less ‘off with their heads,’” Rory said, squinting up at the gargoyles.

“Really? You thought Chilton, internationally renowned spy academy, would be less Queen of Hearts and more, what exactly? Glinda the Good Witch?” Lorelai laughs.

“Shut up.”

“No, no, I want to know what you were picturing, Snow White?” Lorelai is grinning now. The first time she has shown any sort of positivity in relation to Chilton. If this is all she can get, Rory is going to take it. 

“Alright, Mom. When you’re quite done.”

A flicker of worry slips through Lorelai’s well practiced Teasing Mom Face. 

“Are you nervous about starting today?”

Rory starts to shake her head, brush it off. But her mom probably deserves the truth, after everything she’s done. After she let Rory convince her – Rory is not in the habit of lying to herself, and her mom was trained to withstand torture, so it’s unlikely Rory’s own unrefined persuasive techniques did much more than endear her – that going back to a world she had tried so hard to extricate herself from was a good idea. So she tells the truth. Sometimes the truth has power. More power than any of the spies in her life have ever acknowledged.

“A little. I know you’ve probably been, if not consciously then at the very least unconsciously, training me since birth, but these kids have been training formally for a lot longer than I’ve even known what you and Grandma do.”

“Did,” Lorelai corrects, out of habit. Then she smiles, reassuring because it is not her well-practiced smile, it’s just her Rory smile. “You’ll do fine, kid. You’ll do amazing! One piece of advice?” Rory nods. “You’re good at sincerity. Use that as your mask, okay?”

In lieu of an actual response, Rory throws herself into Lorelai’s arms and squeezes tight.

“Good luck, kiddo.”

 

It takes Rory about three steps into the administration building to be confronted by a five foot three personification of all her Chilton fears.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Lorelai Gilmore,” Blonde Girl No. 1 says. She is flanked by Blonde Girl No. 2, who looks like she would quite happily gut Rory just to see how she worked, and Brunette Girl, who genuinely looks happy to see Rory, which might just be worse.

“I prefer Rory, actually,” Rory says before she can think of anything more intelligent or intimidating to say. Intimidation is not really her forte. Clearly she’ll be learning by osmosis.

“Rory, then,” and her voice drips with the kind of placation a lioness offers zebra.

“You may be a Gilmore, but you’re not special. Your grandmother was special, and maybe your mother way too. But you weren’t raised in our world. This school is my domain, and in three years, when we graduate, your name will be a footnote, a point of interest and nothing more. Understand?”

Rory, mouth open to reply with something, is suddenly alone in the corridor.

It’s going to be a long three years.

 

***

 

They’re in Madeline and Louise’s room, studying for their finals. Or, more accurately, Paris and Madeline are studying for their finals, and Louise is sitting on her bed surrounded by wires and parts of tech Paris has never seen before, tinkering, with a furrow in her brow.

Paris watches as she bites her lip, connecting two wires. Nothing happens once they’re twisted together, and Louise smiles. 

“Oh, good.”

“ _What_?” Madeline looks up from Paris’ notes. Her face falls. “You promised no more almost explosions in the bedroom.”

“And it didn’t explode,” Louise smirks. “Promise kept.” 

“Ladies.” They grin at each other before turning towards her slowly. “We have our Covert Ops final in ten hours –“

“How exactly am I meant to study for Covert Ops without going through the motions?” Louise asks around the pliers she has stuffed in her mouth.

“Yeah, and it’s the only class I know I’m going to ace, so,” Madeline trails off, shrugging.

Paris huffs. If this is what she gets from people she’s known all her life, people she actually likes, maybe she should study with someone she doesn’t like. She grabs all her notes, nearly ripping the ones in Madeline’s grip, and stuffs them in her satchel. She stalks to the door, turns, picks up her pile of textbooks, and then, when she finally makes it through the door, slams it behind her.

Rory’s door is just a door. Some of the Chilton students have modified their dorm rooms with increased corridor surveillance, or increased security. But Rory just has a standard lock. Paris is not entirely sure how she has managed to live in a single dorm with a standard lock and not lose all her things. But people seem to like Rory, despite Paris’ best attempts to undermine her, so maybe there is something to be said for killing with kindness.

Rory’s door is just a door, and Paris knows how to knock, so it doesn’t make any sense that she stands there, in her pyjamas, in the middle of a corridor anyone could walk down, for two minutes and forty-seven seconds. Even then she doesn’t knock.

“Paris?” Rory stops just before she collides with Paris. Given that she was looking behind her at the time it says a lot about her spatial awareness. Covert Ops may be Paris’ weaker subject, but it is one in which Rory excels. Rory who is standing there is pink cupcake pyjamas and fluffy purple socks. Rory who is waiting for a response to her implied _what the hell are you doing haunting my doorway?_

“Rory, hi.” _Rory, hi?_ Paris shudders internally. _Pull yourself together._ “I was wondering if you would be interested in studying for the Covert Ops -?”

“You know what,” Rory starts. Paris’ heart sinks. It’s her fault. Did she really have to ruin her chance at having some sort of quid pro quo study buddy relationship with the only other student who seems as invested in the act of studying as Paris is? Of course she did. Pride is her undoing. “I was just about to grab more coffee from the kitchen. I would really appreciate the company.”

An olive branch. Paris is not going to let this opportunity slip through her fingers. This opportunity to expand her network of allies, obviously; not an opportunity for friendship. If she wants to be the youngest Head Agent in history she does not have time for friendship. 

“Thank you,” Paris offers in return. Rory smiles, ducking her head like she knows the full power of that smile has the power to destroy Paris.

She makes a mental note to remind herself that she does not have time for friendship every time Rory smiles at her like that.

 

***

 

Louise is perching on the arm of the couch in Rory’s living room. Madeline is sitting next to her, leaning against her side. Paris has not stopped pacing since they arrived ten minutes ago, out of the blue, not once. Not even to sit down.

Rory is still not sure how to handle this bleeding of her Chilton life into her Stars Hollow life, but she knows it would help if Paris just sat down. Neither of them are making eye contact, so she has to make do with knowing looks from Madeline and Louise.

Her mom isn’t helping. Darting in and out of the kitchen with bowls pilled high with all the junk food in the house, pulling funny hats out of the piles of donations that keep threatening to swallow their house and putting on funny voices to entertain three budding spies who a year ago seemed determined to make Rory’s life a living hell. Every time Lorelai pops back into the room Rory has to redirect the conversation, which is not helping her get to the bottom of _why they are here in the first place._

She glares at her, gesturing her back to the kitchen. Lorelai pokes her tongue out, but thankfully, thankfully complies.

“I find your mom fascinating,” Louise says, watching her go with a calculated look.

“If you’re seducing Lorelai Gilmore, I want in,” Madeline says. A little too loud if the snort from the kitchen is anything to go by.

“Of course you’re in. You think I’d seduce my girlfriend’s hero without my girlfriend?” They smile at each other, Louise sincere in a way she never is outside of their bubble. It’s a little off putting. 

“Okay, instead of talking about plans you are never, ever, going to put in motion, can you tell me why you’re here?” Rory asks, for the third time, still refusing to look Paris in the eye.

Because Paris is in Stars Hollow. Paris, who lives and breathes espionage, sticks out like a missing thumb in her small town. Stars Hollow is so full of colour sometimes it hurts to look, and Paris looks like negative space she’s so used to hiding. A colourful Paris is a little difficult to wrap her head around though.

“We,” Louise says, pointing to herself and Madeline with great import and a heavy handedness she seems to revel in, “are leaving. We just wanted to meet the ineffable Lorelai.”

She hops to her feet, and offers her hand to Madeline, who uncurls like a particularly graceful cat. They wander into the kitchen, exchange some muffled words with Lorelai, and then just as suddenly as they arrived they’re gone. And she is alone in her living room with Paris.

She doesn’t have to wait long for Paris to break the silence. Paris is about as good at silences as Lorelai. 

“You know the Winslow party?” Paris asks, still looking at her hands.

“The one they’re using as a live recon mission? Sure, I know about it.” It’s all anyone at Chilton’s been talking about for weeks. They’re sending a handful of juniors and seniors along to a swanky fundraiser to see how well they do outside of the classroom, where variables aren’t generated beforehand, and controls are non existent. Everyone wants to be chosen. 

“Charleston’s decided to send me in.” From her tone, and general demeanour, Rory had been expecting to hear Paris’ application had been rejected. To say she’s wrong-footed would be putting it lightly.

“But that’s good news, isn’t it? You’ve been talking about it for weeks.”

“He wants me to go in undercover. Nice dress, hair and make up, actually attend the party! I don’t do parties, Rory. I don’t do social interactions. Not like this one.” Paris is working herself up to full rant mode, and she’ll explode all over Stars Hollow if Rory doesn’t jump in soon. She reaches out, instinctively, and puts her hand on Paris’ shoulder. Before her brain has time to catch up with the gesture, she squeezes.

Instead of flinching back from the touch, like Rory expects, Paris seems to melt into it. Her shoulders drop, the fire leaves her expression, and Rory hates this. Hates that Paris can look so dejected. Hates that she doesn’t immediately have a way to fix this situation. She’s no good at rousing speeches, or sly manipulation. Sincerity is her strength. Rory goes with it.

“Paris, you can do that.” She squeezes Paris’ shoulder again, pauses until she looks up, and tries to pour as much of her belief, her genuine sincerity, into her voice. “You can do anything. I have seen you take down people twice your size, and master every single weapon thrown your way. I’ve seen you unwrap problems with nothing but your own mind to help you, and seen you mastermind our way into and out of a dozen high security organisations. You can do this too. You just need to stop thinking about it like a party, and start thinking about it like an op.”

Paris is looking at her now. Really looking at her. And maybe she wanted that before, but now, with her gaze unbreakable and almost too much, Rory wishes she could look away.

“Will you help me?” Paris asks, still timid.

A little over a year ago Paris had implied she would like Rory’s help for the first time, and since then, every time she has asked the question has not actually left her mouth. Now she’s sitting in Rory’s house, surrounded by half the town’s belongings, and she’s actually said the words. Rory wonders how Paris doesn’t know that her answer will always be yes. 

“Always.”

 

***

 

Rory knows Paris. Knows her so well by now that reading her expressions are like looking in the mirror. She knows the thought patterns that go behind them. So she knows, when Paris strides into her office at the Agency, slams the door shut and then slumps into the couch – an Emily Gilmore insistence – that Paris is not, contrary to all signals stressed, overworked, or angry, because she is usually all three. This is Paris expressing guilt. Rory almost wants to ask what she’s done this time, but that would be _less_ than productive.

“Paris, my love, to what do I owe the pleasure,” she smiles her sweetest smile. Paris groans in response, slumping sideways and burying her face in the cushions. All of which are Louise Grant originals, which means they can be used to smother people, while doubling as listening devices. Louise, despite much complaining, does not have access to any of the audio files.

“Your grandmother came to see me today." 

Rory knows this too. It had been a topic of much heated debate in the Gilmore household. Emily had wanted to Rory to be her successor, Lorelai had wanted Rory to take a desk job, and Richard had wanted his only granddaughter to please not follow in her mother’s and grandmother’s footsteps, but Rory had insisted. Paris was the best one for the job, Paris had wanted to be head of the Agency since she understood what a career was, and Rory enjoyed being her shadow. Paris could rule the world, Rory just wanted to hold her keys.

Instead of saying all of this, Rory just says, “yes?” and waggles her eyebrows.

“Are you sure you don’t want the job?” Paris asks, and Rory can see how it pains her. Her heart clenches a little. Paris has wanted this job forever, but she is willing to postpone her answer, willing to turn it down even, for Rory. Rory loves her. Rory thinks she’s just about the most infuriating person she knows.

“Of course I’m sure,” Rory says, going over to her still lopsided girlfriend. “As we have said many, _many_ times, I am a woman of mystery and intrigue, and I would prefer to keep it that way.” She smiles, and strokes Paris’ hair until she deigns to sit up.

“You’re really, really sure?”

Rory takes Paris’ face between her hands, and rubs their noses together. Paris pulls a funny face, torn between wanting to melt and wanting to roll her eyes. She settles for kissing Rory, darting in and out of range so quickly she’s barely there.

“Am I sure that I want to keep doing a job I love, a job I’m good at, and a job that let’s me protect the woman I love every day of our working lives? Am I sure that I want to be the power behind a very powerful throne, so I can stay out of my grandmother and mother’s very public shadows and stick to my own?”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Paris grins. “I’ll take the job.”

“I have one condition,” Rory says, after kissing her soundly. “You have to let me keep you safe. This job has killed people before, Paris. You have to let me keep you safe.”

“I promise,” Paris says. Just like that. Like it’s easy. And maybe it is.

 

***

 

Paris is beginning to entertain the possibility that this may not have been her best idea. She will not let the thought in in it’s entirety, because that is unproductive and will not get her out of the handcuffs that are currently shackling her to a chair on the seventeenth floor of the building. A building that is home to the law firm where Tristan Dugray works – and isn’t that a blast from the past.

Paris is still not entirely sure why all the leads she’d followed – the chatter, the paper trial, the IP address the emails had been sent from – had brought her here. She hadn’t thought about Tristan much since he’d left Chilton. She had kept a vague eye on him, like she did all her old classmates, and knew he’d enlisted and eventually been honourably discharged from the army, and had gone on to study law. But when his name came up connected with the threats made against Rory, with the $10 million reward being offered for her kidnapping that kept popping up across the globe, Paris had gone digging.

Why did it always come back to money?

“My father cut me off,” Tristan is monologuing. Rory would love this. A classic villainous monologue. “Never really explained why, except that I was a constant source of disappointment. And then I heard about the price on Rory’s head, and I figured if I could catch her, I deserved the money.”

“Did you stop to think that maybe you didn’t need an inheritance, now that you work at one of the top law firms in the country?” Paris refuses to play the hero who keeps her mouth shut, hears the villain out. She’s never been a hero.

Before Tristan can answer, or, as is more likely, give another circuitous non answer, the door swings open behind him. There are no alarms, because there never are, nothing ever signals her arrival. There is no light in the corridor behind her, not pomp and circumstance. Just Rory.

The first time Paris met Rory she had looked lost, out of place. That second assessment may have been Paris’ own bias talking, but the first still stands. In the years that followed she has seen all the faces Rory presents to the world, and some that are just for Paris, but she thinks her favourite might just be this one.

Rory is standing behind Tristan, who really should have known better. Half hidden in shadows, the light from Tristan’s desk lamp illuminates Rory’s smile, just a little wicked at the edges, and Paris doesn’t need to see the gun to know it’s there, safety off, pressed up against the base of Tristan’s spine. Rory looks like the angel of death people so often liken her to; Paris’ sword arm. Or, as Louise so often puts it, Paris’ queenmaker.

Paris has never seen anything as wonderful, or as terrifying. She has a feeling going rogue from her own organisation and avoiding specifics in the note she’d left behind had not gone over well.

“Drop your gun, Tristan.” Rory’s voice, something Paris hasn’t heard in weeks, is soft, gentle, coaxing. He really should have known better.

 

  

When all the conversations have been exhausted, all the relevant documents signed, all the agents sent home, when Madeline had finished clucking over her, and Louise had finished threatening Tristan with things that were most definitely illegal and out of their jurisdiction, when the clean up was done, Rory takes Paris’ hand and leads her home.

Her eyes keep flicking away from the road as she drives, her knuckles white on the wheel. Paris can see the tension she’s holding in her neck and shoulders and wonders how long it’s been since Rory breathed deeply, or had a good night of sleep.

“I’m alright.” Because there isn’t really much more she can say. Rory snorts. “I _am_.”

“I know you are. But you broke your promise. I’m allowed to be angry, Paris. You went off on your own, something you’ve _never_ done, might I add. You went off on your own even though you can delegate now, and you didn’t tell me. You’re alright. But you nearly weren’t.” She lets out a shaky breath, and Paris doesn’t think she’s felt this guilty about anything in her life. But she refuses to say sorry, at least not for doing it. She’d do it again. Rory’s life was in danger, that isn’t something she is ever going to delegate. If you want something done right, you do it yourself. Getting caught and almost dying are a small price to pay knowing that Rory is safe.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” she compromises.

Rory chuckles. It isn’t happy, but it’s getting there. 

“Yeah, okay.” 

They drive in silence. They make it all the way home before Rory speaks again. She’s fixing a drink in the kitchen, and her hands aren’t shaking because she’s been training for nights like tonight since she was sixteen, but she does make hers a double so Paris gets the impression she wishes they were. When Rory turns to face her, handing her a gin and tonic, her expression is open and earnest. Sincerity is her secret weapon.

“I thought we got past this years ago, to be honest,” she starts. “I thought you’d learned how to ask me for help.” 

“It wasn’t a question of asking you for help. If Tristan got his hands on you, he would have made the call. Traded you in for millions of dollars he could use to dig his way out of financial trouble,” Paris spits.

“I’m not saying I would have gone with you. I could have helped though. I could have known where you were.” She holds her hand up when Paris starts to interrupt again. “Can you just try to imagine the situation in reverse? It’s my job to keep you safe. And you didn’t let me do my job.”

She might have a point.

“I’m sorry,” Paris says, putting her glass down on the table. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, taking Rory’s glass out of her hands, threading their fingers together. “I’m sorry,” she breathes against Rory’s mouth.

Rory moans against Paris’ lips, pulls her in for a real kiss, pulls her close and closer until Paris can barely breathe.

“We’re not done talking about this,” Rory says. Paris responds by kissing her way down Rory’s neck, undoing the buttons of her shirt, biting at her collarbone.

“I know,” Paris responds, mostly contrite. “Take me to bed?”

“Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed the spy 'verse and want to know it's origins/any more about it, you can find the "Chilton Academy for Spies" tag on my tumblr


End file.
